


Der Tragödie erster Teil

by albatrost



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Canon Compliant, M/M, Sexual Content, canonverse, non-con elements
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2019-06-26
Packaged: 2019-09-18 15:30:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16997643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/albatrost/pseuds/albatrost
Summary: He wondered briefly, as he rocked back and forth, the taste fresh brine on his lips—the salt of Eren’s sweat or tears, he couldn’t tell—if this wasn’t how it would feel to plunge into ocean waters and drift out to sea. To bob back and forth breathlessly with the tide, suspended in a silent, otherworldly reverie, to feel the waves wash over him again and again, wearing him away, until he was swallowed up in their depths.Three stories, two men, and one tragedy irrevocably threaded between them.(Chapter 2 contains manga spoilers up to Ch. 104)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> [Of the Tragedy, the First Part]  
> The phrase was taken from Goethe's _Faust_ , an appropriately relevant deal with the devil.
> 
> A series of oneshots about Eren and Armin, following the story of the manga. The first takes place during chapter 85, following the events of the Return to Shiganshina arc.

I.

_Rubble and charred wood crackled and snapped beneath his heel, swallowed up by the flames lapping at his ankles. He breathed in, anticipating the burn of the sweltering hot smoke in his throat—the acrid stench of cinder and ash and smoldering ruins that welled bile in his mouth—but there was none. His lungs met clean, fresh air. With a heady terror he realized that the splintered wood beneath his feet was acres away, and he towered above these ruins—a divine instrument of destruction, with a walled world at his mercy. Yet he knew these ruins, knew this town._

_He remembered it bright and bustling, not belching smoke and steam. His eyes traced the curve of the dirt path to the market place, and he recalled the skirmishes there—scuffed shoes and bruise-blotched brows, punches hard enough to split knuckles. He saw the cracked stone steps by the water, remembered rifling through the old pages of a book with pudgy fingers, two dark heads of hair nestled on either side of him. He followed the roads home with his gaze, toward his neighborhood, until he found himself staring at the patch of searing remains at his feet. Was that his home, now, planted beneath those fleshy red toes?_

_He had seen the town from this view before as well. From the outside looking in, eyes scanning past the petrified crowds and vermillion rooftops, settling on three children open-mouthed in awe. Looking himself in the eyes._

_The steam billowed thicker and thicker off of his body, and all around him, stinging his eyes until they prickled with tears, catching in his lungs. He hurtled back and forth, flapping in the wind against the torrent, skin blistering and cracking and peeling, the flesh seared from his very bones—_

With a strangled gasp, Armin lurched into consciousness. Sweat sluiced down his brow, and his arms jerked out on reflex. One clammy hand slapped weakly against the skin of a warm arm, earning a soft grunt in response. The other met cold, empty sheets. He paused for a minute, smoothing his fingers over the wrinkles in the fabric, trying to place where he was. Trying to place _who_ he was. His mind tumbled like a burbling brook over river stones, and by the time he had pieced it all together, he realized why the empty space beside him was so troubling. It had been occupied when he had went to sleep.

“M-Mikasa—” he jolted upright, hands knotting in the sheets. 

He felt a hand grasp his arm weakly, and turned his head to glance over his shoulder.

“She’s up training,” Eren murmured, voice thick with sleep. The brunette had peeled one green eye open, and was watching Armin with concern, despite his exhausted expression. “I mean… I think so,” he added sheepishly.

The blonde boy loosed a breath he didn’t know he had been holding. The shirt on his back was stuck to his skin with sweat, and he was still so _hot_. No breeze drifted through the open window, but the cool air of the room pressed to the nape of his neck was still soothing, in a way. Slowly, he lowered himself back down, turning to face Eren. Armin had worried at first that he had woken him up, but based on the lack of alarm in his tone, Eren had at least been awake to see Mikasa get up and leave in an orderly fashion. Armin almost asked about it—given how unbothered Eren was, it seemed like something she had done before. He caught himself wondering if this was something Mikasa did every night, or if it was a rarity reserved for desperate and sleepless times, every swing of her fists smoothing the lines of fear and frustration from her face. Ackerman strength aside, that muscle didn’t build itself. How hard did she work to keep herself capable of protecting them? It couldn’t be for her own sake, he mused sadly. He knew exactly how selflessly selfish she had always been, fiercely choosing those she loved above her orders, above her comrades, above all else. 

Yet she had endured something which betrayed that. He heard what had happened, as Eren and the others recounted it to him briefly. Mikasa, every bit the manifestation of rage, blade pressed to the captain's throat, ready to kill for him. Mikasa, howling like a beast in agony as Hange held her back. Mikasa, lowering her blades in resignation, tears streaking through the thin layer of ash on her face, biting back that helpless anger—knowing there was a way out, and suffering through his sacrifice anyways. All of the guilt and blame and pain and emptiness twisting in her gut, until the moment she saw him rise again, in all the hideous glory of the titans. All that she'd been through because of him. He wanted to go to her, comfort her, and he wanted to ask Eren, but his tongue felt dry in his mouth and his head was spinning, and this wasn’t the time. Eyelids languidly drooping shut, he tried to slow his breathing and drift off again. Dread and disbelief, guilt and giddiness and gratefulness, nausea and horror all swirled and swelled in the back of his mind— yet they were all easy enough to smother beneath the blanket of exhaustion that hung over him, eyelids heavy and body weak, and so he did.

The Survey Corps—or what was left of them—had chosen to settle for the night in Shiganshina rather than making the long journey back in their current state. Fortunately, there were plenty of houses at least partially spared from the titans’ carnage, fully equipped with warm beds and wardrobes stuffed with clothes. 

Although he didn’t know where in the house his other comrades were settled for the night, Eren, Mikasa, and he had been able to all share a king-sized bed, and he remembered nodding off between the two of them. A drowsy quiet blanketed them, and once Armin’s hammering heart had settled, he was ready to let exhaustion drag him back under—before a quick hiss of a whisper sliced through the silence, like a paring blade through flesh.

“I thought you were gone.”

It was spoken so softly that it could have been no more than a sigh, a breath, a flutter of moth wings in the night air. But despite how faint it was, the brokenness of the familiar voice that spoke it, the tearful tremble on his tongue, carved Armin to the core. He opened his eyes.

 _I should have been_ , Armin wanted to say, feeling his chest swell as he met the wet, wide-eyed stare before him. It wasn’t something he would say now—not even with his stomach tossing, tethered to the swinging anchor of guilt—because of how it would crush him. _Eren_. His chest grew even tighter as he studied that gut-wrenching expression, and even with the darkness sapping the color out of everything he saw, painting this nocturnal world of blacks and blues, he swore those eyes still gleamed fierce viridian.

Brighter than the rich swaths of evergreen forest they had braved as cadets. Deeper than the pale wash of seafoam paint that colored the ocean on the yellowed pages of his picture books. An endless expanse of crystalline teal, stretching from one horizon to the next… which he had decided, as he plunged his grappling hook into the teeth of the Colossus, that he would never live to see.

Armin never wanted to die, but he had been prepared to. It was something different than the solemn resignation of the fate they had sealed for themselves, than the fate they had been born into. It wasn’t the same as learning to accept the looming threat of the world beyond the walls, falling into the habitual uneasiness of a life lived at the titans’ mercy, even before their city became a slaughterhouse—just as Eren had always foretold. It wasn’t the offering of their hearts before Commander Erwin—a promise that was only background noise, easy to forget, until one found themselves facing the barrel of a gun or the jaws of a beast. Because even then, in the bowels of hell, he had writhed and rioted against his death. This was looking his death in the eye and hurtling toward it, without fear or regret. For only one reason, and only one person.

He reached out, hand damp with sweat and shaking, to cup the side of Eren’s face, staring enigmatically at the boy to whom he had entrusted his world. The brunette boy didn’t flinch when he felt the weight against his cheek, and shifted closer, peering at Armin like he was trying to make out his features in the dark.

He was ready to entrust all of it to Eren. His dreams and aspirations, his future—all the years of his life, and the peace he prayed their sacrifice would bring. A world for Eren to explore, to relish in, to love—tears sparkling in his eyes as he watched their childhood fantasies become true—exactly as Armin would have. And he felt nothing but peace as the scorching steam swallowed him whole, nothing but serenity as his consciousness tapered out, because he could give this much to Eren. And Eren would do this much for him.

Armin did startle when he felt Eren’s warm fingertips against the edge of his face. His fingers trembled as they brushed softly against his jaw and cheek, before smoothing a strand of golden hair behind his ear.

“I… I thought I’d never—” Eren’s voice slit open the silence once more, his throat tightening, before he cut himself off, sucking in a sharp breath. He leaned forward to press his forehead to Armin’s. Heat radiated from the palm still resting on Armin’s cheek, and he could feel Eren’s breath ghosting gossamer-light over his face. The two rested in a precarious but tranquil balance. It was something that had comforted him his entire life, this easy and contented closeness with Eren, but there was a novelty to it now—some giddy gratefulness, some near-death desperation—and he found himself leaning closer, noses nudging together, as his heart sped up. The mattress dipped and creaked as he felt Eren’s body shift closer, drawing a leg over his own and pulling him closer into this embrace, fingers still threaded into that flaxen hair. He could have fallen asleep like that, he thought, but for some reason his heartbeat was still restless, and he was struggling to swallow down some feeling he couldn’t explain, some deeply wrought and emotional thing threatening to claw its way out of his throat. Every part of Eren that was pressed to him seemed to sear him with its heat, and the more snugly he pressed against him, the closer he needed to be, host to some powerful, tight-chested, clenched-jaw urge he had never felt before. It was a moment before he realized that Eren must have felt it, too—or so he surmised from the rapid-fire pulse he could feel in the other boy’s wrist, pressed to his jaw.

And, after what felt like an eternity of mingling breaths and gunfire pulse—of this inexplicable and overwhelming _feeling_ coiling in their bellies—of lips dry with anticipation—Eren closed the gap between them, as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

There was a moment of hesitation—a surprised hitch in Armin's breath once that hot mouth pressed hard against his—before a low, soft sound shuddered out of his throat, and he melted into Eren’s embrace. His hand slid to clasp the back of Eren’s neck, fingers brushing against the short-cut hair at the base of his skull, and he pulled the dark-haired boy in deeper. It was inexperienced and starved and curious, mouths pressed flush and tongues delving past lips—hands drifting and gripping—and when Armin sucked his bottom lip and let it go with a tender pop, breaking their kiss, something changed in Eren. Leaning onto the leg already partially hoisted over Armin’s, he rolled them over, settling on top of him. His lids fluttered open for long enough to catch a glimpse of Armin from behind his dark lashes, and he drank in the sight of those parted lips—blush-pink and glistening—so soft and open and _inviting_ —before he dove back in to claim them. 

His mouth enveloped Armin’s own, lapping up the breathy sounds that burst from his lips, and he breathed in deeply, beneath the soot and sweat, savoring the warm and familiar scent that was Armin. The blonde boy’s grasp on his neck tightened, and he dragged him down deeper, closer—he needed to be closer, flusher than skin itself—because something about resigning themselves to the end, about being ripped back from death’s edge, had torn them open, left them vulnerable, and it was soothed—even if only a little—once they were nestled against each other, those raw and festering wounds hidden away from the world and tucked together.

He hardly noticed that their bodies were rocking with the heave of each deep ragged breath from their lungs, hardly noticed the friction building between them, until he felt a sudden heat and weight pressed against his groin through Eren's thin pajama pants. A thick hardness that made his head spin. The realization sent a hot jolt of liquid pleasure down his spine, anticipation coiling in his stomach, and he bit down a groan as he thrust up unconsciously against Eren. He could feel the blood rush south, the near-painful ache that swelled in his groin. Armin clawed weakly at his shoulders, near-desperate for relief. In any other circumstance, when he wasn’t so overwhelmed, he may have stopped to consider what they were doing, and whether it was wrong to be doing—but the room was spinning and Eren’s kisses stole the very breath from his lungs and the heat rubbing against him was exquisite—and it was hard to find any guilt in such bliss.

He knew Eren was making noises, softly moaning into his mouth, because he could feel them reverberate against his tongue, but the sound was drowned out beneath the rush of blood in his ears. The white noise of crashing waves. He wondered briefly, as he rocked back and forth, suspended in a silent, otherworldly reverie, if this wasn’t how it would feel to plunge into ocean waters and drift out to sea. To bob back and forth breathlessly with the tide, to feel the waves wash over him again and again, wearing him away, until he was swallowed up in their depths. He could taste fresh brine on his lips—the salt of Eren’s sweat or tears, he couldn’t tell—the saltwater spray on his tongue. He could feel the soft froth of seafoam rolling over him with each tender brush of Eren's hands over his skin. And he drank it all down—if he had defied death once, why fear drowning?

Eren broke away then, parched for air, but his hips never stopped rolling forward. As he gulped in a heavy breath, his eyes met Armin’s once again, ever so briefly, but Armin saw it. It was a look Armin had been witness to before, in passing moments of fondness, but he had never waded out further, never questioned how deeply the roots of this feeling were twined. Adoration. Reverence. The awe-and-slack-jaw gaze of the wall cult’s followers, hands raised to the sky, begging forgiveness before the stonewall goddesses that had forsaken them. Helpless, helpless love.

It was only a moment before Eren’s head darted down again, this time planting wet kisses at the base of his jaw, and Armin’s body jerked, the small of his back arching as Eren’s breath washed over his throat. He realized too late in his dizziness how close he was, and he pushed up to grind against Eren—cock throbbing something excruciating, flushed pink and tip dripping wet—and his moans grew louder as he felt that heat swell tighter in his gut. His balls tightened and his toes curled, and he felt all his muscles squeeze painfully taut, pushing harder and harder against Eren, until—

With a powerful wave of pleasure shuddering through his body, he thrust up as he came, crying out from the sheer intensity of it. Relief coursed through his body as his hips jumped, coming in hot thick ropes of white, and he groaned as he rode out his orgasm, cock twitching and body trembling. The sensation grew overwhelming as Eren continued above him, thrusts growing quicker and more erratic, his hardness pushing against Armin’s stomach and squeezing over the reddened, leaking tip of his spent cock. The boy almost whimpered at the now-wet friction, so sensitive that it was maddening, before Eren jerked and froze above him, pressing flush to his body, and shouted into the pillow beside Armin’s head. He could feel Eren’s cock pulse hard against his own, once, twice, a handful of times, followed by a rush of wet heat. It was all he could do to bite his lip and hold back a groan as he listened to Eren’s broken moans, muffled by the pillow, as that heat spread, as Eren spilled himself into the fabric until he was finished. 

For a couple moments, as the ringing left their ears, the room was silent, save for their heaving breath. It was almost a little too quiet—and for a moment his heart leapt into his throat, because they hadn’t exactly been quiet themselves, and wouldn’t they be able to hear Jean and Connie’s familiar snoring if they were still asleep? However, he reassured himself that he hadn't heard their snoring through these walls to begin with, and he tried to wipe the thoughts from his mind. After a second, Eren lifted himself off of him and rolled onto his side. While Armin yearned for the warmth of his body the second he was hit with cool air again, he hadn’t realized how hard it was to breathe under Eren’s weight, and he coughed the second that air filled his lungs.

A hand weakly grabbed his own once his breath was steady again. He tossed onto his side to face Eren again—and maybe this still wasn’t the time to think about what they had done and what it meant—because Eren’s eyes were closed, dark lashes fluttering against his cheeks, the faintest trace of a smile on his lips as he succumbed to sleep. Eren’s fingers splayed open, and Armin’s moved to thread through them, a natural reflex after all these years. The blonde nestled closer to him, eyes drooping shut, before letting the exhaustion drag him under as well, strong as the tide.

It was dawn when he next awoke. The palest cornflower blue light spilled over Armin’s eyes, and he peeled them open slowly, disoriented. He felt the warmth of bodies to his front and back, and he realized with a wave of relief that Mikasa must have returned from training. Any unease dissipated, and he shifted, wanting to glance over his shoulder to make sure, before he froze in horror. He realized, with a sinking feeling in his gut, that he and Eren had never cleaned up last night. That the front of his pants was still cold and wet and uncomfortably sticky, that it had likely soaked through and soiled the sheets, and, worst of all, rife with embarrassment—that Mikasa could probably smell it on them. 

As mortifying as it was, if Mikasa did notice, if they did reek of sweat and semen, she said nothing. All she did, once she felt Armin stir and realized he was awake, was squeeze him tighter with the arm she had wrapped over his shoulder and gently knock her head against the back of his, resting it there. He realized with a swell of emotion in his chest that, all her understanding and compassion aside, nothing she felt could have rivaled her gratitude. He shifted to press the warm heels of his feet against her freezing toes, hoping to warm her even a little, and he felt her bury her nose in his hair, squeezing him just a little tighter.

Long after, Armin would realize that perhaps all of the star-crossed cruelty that awaited them was written in stone centuries before, that Ymir Fritz wove their damnation into the paths the moment that she signed her Faustian pact. A deal with the devil. An original sin of titanic proportion.

Yet he would always feel it started in that moment, heavy with shame and peace, the bodies of those he loved nestled to either side of him. 

The beginning of their tragedy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really appreciate feedback! (And discussion, if anyone else is as distraught as I am over manga happenings and/or as emotional about eremin)! Feel free to follow me on tumblr (rip) @albatrost! I use the same name on the Praise the Walls discord. Thank you for reading!


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Armin didn’t know what he was persuading Eren against. A quiet, buried part of him wondered if that was because he didn’t want to.
> 
> Helpless hatred—borne of love, in its most hideous form.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: As mentioned in the story summary, this chapter contains manga spoilers up to SnK 104... it also contains some speculation on the events of the most recent chapters, though no explicit spoilers are given.
> 
> (Although we aren't yet at a point in the canon where all the characters' intentions are perfectly clear, and I was going to wait until then to write more (to ensure that this stayed canon-compliant and not canon-divergent, sjdksks), I couldn't resist writing this due to a lot of feelings I've been having!
> 
> This might call for another warning, but after the events of SnK 118, I personally am skeptical of Eren's course of action despite whatever the positive root intention may be, and this chapter reflects that.)

II.

As he saw him walk away, fingers curled around the stem of that old bronze key, a part of Armin hoped that maybe one of the many books he'd brought over to Eren’s house during his childhood was still there, a preserved bit of peace smoldering away under the rubble and ruin. That maybe Eren would see a familiar corner peeking out from behind a blackened beam, cover smeared with soot—that maybe Eren would carefully turn the book over in his hands with a wistful smile, and bring it back to him. 

Eren returned with a book about the world clasped between his fingers, but it wasn’t Armin’s.

  


* * *

The tip of the blade pressed gingerly to the pad of his finger—the flesh white under the tender pressure, a tap away from splitting open. Eren worried his lip as he trained his gaze on his left knee, twirled the long knife in his hands, careful not to prick the tip. If he noticed when the door quietly creaked open, a squeal as soft as a whisper, he didn’t react.

Sparing a glance over his shoulder to where Eren slouched on the edge of the bed, Armin eased the door shut with a gentle click. Steps gossamer light over the wooden floor, he crossed the room to stand in front of him. A brilliant flash of silver caught his eye, blade still spinning on Eren’s fingertip, and he swallowed thickly. The blonde’s eyes skimmed over his figure, hovered on his face—expression enigmatical, those dark viridian eyes worlds away. Eren had invited him to his room for a reason, Armin figured. But now, watching those unmoving eyes as he balanced a blade in his hands, he was puzzled about what that might be. Something about Eren’s dire stare made Armin uneasy, somehow—shadows shifting and lurking behind his eyes, right beneath that placid exterior—

“Do you remember the stories Sasha would tell us,” Eren started, and Armin nearly jumped when he spoke, “back when we were cadets, when all of us went on endurance missions up in the mountains?”

“Ha, yeah,” he forced a weak smile, still a bit put off by Eren’s appearance. “Which ones?”

“The ones about her hunting trips,” he clarified, still focused on his leg. Armin found his own gaze drawn back to the unfamiliar knife—a machete, by the looks of it. Military-issued, if the handle’s material was anything to go by.

“Yeah,” Armin mumbled, breathing out a laugh. “Those missions were nothing to her… She couldn’t fathom that half the people there had never spent a night outdoors.” He was still squinting suspiciously at the object in Eren’s hands. There was hardly any brush to scythe through on Paradis, no reason to carry a machete—at the very least, if this weapon was part of a standard-issue uniform, it wasn’t one that he had ever worn before.

Eren’s gaze was almost curious now, as he burned a hole into his own leg.

“I remember we had rations, but she was the only one of us who knew how to trap and hunt,” Eren murmured. “When she was roasting that rabbit for us, she told us the one about the wolf in the bear trap.”

Armin’s pulse quickened, and he shook his head slowly. “I, uh, I don’t remember that one.”

“It really freaked everybody out, I remember. She had a good time laughing at some peoples’ expense,” he half-smiled, looking bizarrely wistful for only a moment. “She and her dad accidentally caught a wolf in one of their jaw traps. They used to keep a couple of them lined a distance from the cabin, to protect against predators, I guess—and they snatched up a wolf. Heard it yelp. But by the time they got there, it was gone. All that was left was the leg... chewed clean off.”

Armin swallowed around the heartbeat tight in his throat, regarded Eren carefully. A cold thrill trickled down his spine as Eren continued, barking out a disconcerting laugh, “I mean, I remember being baffled. Thinking, what kind of animal would gnaw its own leg off? What would it have to be feeling, thinking, to do something like that?”

Armin opened his mouth to speak—and realized he was right to be concerned when Eren quietly, distantly mumbled out a final question, let it trail off. 

“Just how trapped would you have to be...?”

“Eren…” Armin started—wondered if that was what was off about him—if that gut-curdling, puzzling look he couldn’t place was just that. Caged-beast, frenzied. He was never without that determined air to him—that _righteous_ resolve—even now, even when he seemed hesitant, backed into a corner. Yet there was something hair-raising about that now that Armin couldn’t quite place.

The man’s murmur of his name seemed to snap him out of it, lucidity washing over him, and he shook his head. The brunette glanced up at Armin, granting him a quick, tight-lipped smile, and got to his feet, walking across the room. Armin didn’t budge. Cautious, crystal-blue eyes brushed over him as he sheathed the blade—a sheath with a belt loop, the blonde noted—so this _was_ military-issue—and opened a drawer in the small wooden armoire against the wall. As he slipped it neatly on top of the folded uniform inside, something caught Armin’s eye—a folded band of fabric, dull mustard in color.

“What’s that?” Armin asked, and Eren turned to him slowly, guardedly. After knowing him for the better part of his life, he knew better than to give Armin too much to mull over.

“Hange asked me to hold onto a couple things,” he gestured as vaguely as he could. “Not sure why.”

And that was a convenient aspect of the military, Armin mused—secrecy down the chain of command, confidential topics swept cleanly out of the realm of discussion, unless there was some warranted cause for suspicion. He supposed there wasn’t, really, besides the churning in his gut—the feeling that he’d seen that colored band somewhere before, perhaps in a briefing, and just couldn’t place his finger on it—frustrated by how muddled his mind was, preoccupied with Eren’s odd defensiveness. And, as far as he knew, Eren had never been anything besides unendearingly honest—the only exceptions to protect those he loved—and Eren wouldn’t lie to him, would he? His stomach twisted—because as of late, even from the man he loved, it wasn’t a possibility he could rule out—but even if he _would_ , even if someone other than Hange had gifted him these things, what would he gain from calling Eren out?

The taller man stepped forward, clasped the back of his neck in the palm of his hand, drawing his attention away from the drawer. Even as Eren’s eyes raked over him adorantly as ever, even as he shuddered under that tender touch—rough fingertips drifting feather-light over the soft skin of his throat, pulse beating gunfire against Eren’s hand—he couldn’t shake the suspicion stirring in his stomach. Something was wrong. There was a restlessness to his motions as he drew Armin into a kiss, as he stepped forward, coaxing Armin toward the bed—and even though Armin suspected this might be why Eren had invited him to his room tonight anyways, the rush and neediness of it gave him pause. And he didn’t want to distrust Eren—wanted so badly to believe that he had no reason to, even with Eren’s unsettling nostalgic spiel—but why would he _lie—_

“I’ve been thinking about you all day,” Eren breathed out against his lips. His other hand drifted down to grasp Armin at the hip, pushed their bodies together—and the blonde shuddered when he was pressed flush to Eren’s front, felt the man’s cock swelling and thickening against him.

“I can tell,” he murmured, eyebrows raised, once Eren’s lips had moved from his mouth to his cheek, and he felt the rush of air against his jaw when Eren snickered.

“That’s not what I mean,” he smiled against the skin. He back them up further, until Armin’s legs bumped the mattress. “I was thinking about when I met you. About when we were kids.”

His hands moved to hurriedly unfasten Armin’s belt—and as eager as he was for Eren’s touch, as much as he always yearned to be with him, a miniscule seed of dread took root. Sometimes, when he laid with him, he hardly knew him anymore—relished in hands roaming over his skin that he barely recognized. The ferocity and intensity were Eren’s, the words were Eren’s, the body he knew so well was Eren’s—but he was looking into the eyes of a stranger. And, though he had never been scared of Eren himself, sometimes this terrified him.

“About what you did for me.”

“Hm?” Armin cracked a lid open, side-eying Eren as the brunette curled his lips over the sensitive skin of his throat. He slipped a hand over Eren’s nape up to the base of his skull, threaded his fingers through his long, dark, glossy hair, as Eren nipped and kissed gently at his neck. Armin let a shiver run through him—longed to savor the sensation, tingles trembling over his skin wherever Eren’s lips brushed, longed to fold back into Eren’s hands like he always did, and forget...

“I was thinking about all the days before I knew you, how I’d just spend all day staring at the sky. Every day, same pen, chewing the same cud,” Eren’s breath ghosted hot over Armin’s skin as he spoke, and the blonde’s knees weakened. “How I didn’t want anything, back then. Didn’t need anything.”

Armin lowered himself carefully onto the bed, and Eren followed him, caging the shorter man in between his arms and claiming his lips again. His breath was heavier, harsher, excited, as he whispered, “How you showed me there was more, an entire world out there that we’d never gotten a taste of. That there were horizons, somewhere, without walls on them—that there was this big beautiful liberation out there I couldn’t even wrap my head around,” his lips were flush to Armin’s, the words breathed out between kisses. “How you gave me your dreams. _Taught_ me how to want. Gave me a purpose.”

The words would stick with Armin months later—would swirl and swell sickly in his mind as he towered worlds above the charred remains of Marley’s port—every bit the colossal god of death that Eren wanted him to be—as the rogue titan’s carnal cries echoed in the distance. Wondering if there was something he could have said. 

Wondering if this was a monster of his own painfully hopeful making.

As it was, in the moment, Armin was confused by its intensity, uncertain what it meant—but groaned anyways when their mouths meshed together, when Eren’s tongue delved past his lips and rolled against his own. 

His mouth broke free of Armin’s with a wet pop, and he leaned over, lips brushing against the shell of Armin’s ear. “And you wanted to see all of it—oceans of fire and water alike—and you deserve to,” he muttered, a subtle shift in his tone. “You—we—deserve to go to the ends of the earth, if we want it. Deserve to want a world that wants us, too. One where we’ll never be spat on for who we are, or locked up again, as the years of our lives fall away—”

“—which is why all of the commander’s diplomatic meetings with the Azumabito family are important,” Armin cut in, brows furrowed.

And maybe it was wrong to bring it up—it was something they hardly talked about, after all, since they never agreed—but it felt like Eren was nudging the conversation in this direction anyways. He wouldn’t disagree with him on what they deserved—that everyone had a birthright to this planet. But something tossed in his gut when he thought about Eren’s last suggestion, because he knew that the military’s assurance plan wound tight about Historia’s throat, around her children’s throats—both a yoke and a noose. Because knew that this protection and freedom were transient at best and a farce at worst. Because he knew that Eren was reasonably unsatisfied with this plan… but what _would_ satisfy Eren?

Always, he found himself thinking back to the moment they had reached the ocean—to the instant they had soaked in that endless expanse of crystalline teal, waded out into the sparkling froth and brine. The moment his dreams came true. The moment he had turned his brilliant grin away from Mikasa’s soft smile and rose-smattered cheeks, and watched Eren point past the wide swaths of saltwater, past the bright, blended blue horizon. Toward what looked like eternity.

The moment he realized that freedom meant very different things to the two of them.

“I don’t like it any better than you do, but for now, it’s all we have,” Armin pleaded with him when he felt Eren freeze above him. “It buys us time. Even if it’s through fear, even if they don’t get along with us, then at least they learn to respect us, right? It gives them a chance to—”

“On our friend’s life?” Eren scowled, shifting so that his face was above Armin’s, looking him in the eyes. “On her children’s lives? Look what’s been happening outside, for the hundred years we’ve been out of their grasp. They’ve had enough chances.”

Despite the bitterness underlying his tone, there was a strain in his voice. He talked like he wanted Armin to understand something he couldn’t say, push him into at least stumbling on this unspoken thing if he couldn’t convince him. Armin drew his brows together helplessly, asked, “What’re you talking about? This threat is the only thing we have to bargain with, Eren.”

“It doesn’t stop at the wall, Armin,” he shook his head, the dire intensity of his stare chilling Armin to the core. “Don’t you see? It doesn’t stop at the shore, and a world full of people who dream of our extinction isn’t a world for the taking—”

Armin tried to cut in—desperate frustration mounting, welling up rapidly as Eren cut him off, began to rile himself up, shaking his head, “There’s another way—”

“There isn’t always a way out, Eren!”

Both of them startled at Armin’s outburst—and he couldn’t remember the last time frustration had furrowed his brow—frustration for _Eren_ , of all people—but here Armin was, after all the cryptic reasons to doubt Eren, after Eren’s age-old, sanctimonious refusal to waver from what he thought was right… angry with him. Insistent. All but begging for him to understand and swallow down the cruel ways of the world, even if it hurt—for him to accept the unfairness and injustice they’d been dealt, that others had been dealt, even if it was hard to stomach. To build a better world on the shaky foundation they still had, that they were all still lucky to have. 

Armin didn’t know what he was persuading Eren against. A quiet, buried part of him wondered if that was because he didn’t want to.

Eren’s snarl softened, to his surprise. He hung his head slightly, long dark strands of hair slipping off of his shoulders. And even if he wasn’t swayed, he still stopped to regard Armin carefully—because Armin would know.

Because Armin had faced insurmountable odds with only one path to victory. He had hurtled toward death, sacrificed himself for everyone else, for the loftiest cause there was, because that was the only way the pack survived. And perhaps that was why Eren was so desperate for him to understand.

Because that day, when there was no other way than Armin’s sacrifice, Eren _had_ found a way out—a way to circumvent Armin’s death, to preserve him. A way that came rising from steam and ashes. A way bathed in Bertholdt’s blood.

The regard Eren held him in was eerie, in that instant—like Armin was worn sinew about to snap. There was a helpless, grief-stricken love that pained the edges of his deadpan stare—an impatience, a desperation, as if whatever had hinged on that moment, on tonight, had been severed the instant Armin had said what he did. As if some unspoken, forsaken judgement had already been passed on their fates.

As if this might be the last time.

Eren’s fingers tenderly, carefully intertwined with Armin’s—and Armin let it happen. Felt his own fingers curled around Eren’s knuckles, with all the cautious softness of a finger on a trigger. A desperate resolution he’d had before, when Jean’s life dangled precariously, gut-wrenchingly, in front of his eyes—but one that soured his stomach, welled bile in his throat. His pulse thundered loud enough to drown out all else, but when Eren’s lips graced his cheek again, tucked away next to his ear, he heard as he whispered out, with all the surety in the world, “I know you, Armin. I know what you want.”

And even though Eren’s voice thrumming against his skin had warmth curling in his gut, he couldn’t cast the nervous tremble from his hands, the uneasiness gnawing at the back of his skull—felt on the brink of peeling back the flesh of a realization, exposing the festering and putrid innards stewing within—felt sick when he tried to think of the alternative. He tried to lurch upwards onto his elbows—but realized his hands were still interwoven with Eren’s, pressed under them. He pushed hard, once, twice—and swallowed hard when Eren didn’t move, except to lift his head.

He peered down at Armin enigmatically, that crazed desperation from before glinting in his eyes—and at the very least, to his bizarre relief, they weren’t a stranger’s. This determination, this righteous fear and anger _was_ a part of Eren—was something he could reconcile with the boy from his youth, who he had wrapped his arms about in adoration so many times—a memory that was tangible, _palpable_. Something he knew, something he saw in Eren—something he loved him for, and something he loved him in spite of. Helpless hatred—borne of love, in its most hideous form. And the twinge of fear still roiling in his gut dampened—because this was Eren, the man he’d entrusted his life to, who he ought to know better than anyone, spare possibly Mikasa. And Armin ought to know better, he told himself.

The blonde turned his head to the side, bared the pale flesh of his throat to the man above him—a peace offering. He softly flexed his body, pressed his hips up invitingly against Eren’s—pulse still palpitating from fear as much as from arousal—and yielded to him. Told himself that he didn’t have to yield, and didn’t pause to think about whether or not that was true. Shuddered when Eren acquiesced to his offer, lips curling hot over the delicate skin of his neck.

“It’s not just about a world you can explore,” Eren continued, teeth grazing over his throat. Armin shivered hard when Eren bit down, with all the doting tenderness in the world. 

“You want a world at peace, Armin.”

Tears beaded in his eyes as they fluttered shut—caught like diamonds in his lashes—and Eren’s lips swept his up in a rough kiss. Unsettling devotion tinged his voice, made something twist in Armin’s gut, and the way Eren spoke to him now was nearly gracious. As if he was bestowing a gift upon him.

“And I’m going to give that to you.”

Armin didn’t know how dangerous those words were, then.

Pain furrowed the brunette’s brow even then, but whatever Eren had been thinking—whatever genuine remorse or regret would weigh on him for slaughtered Marleyan children and fallen Eldian comrades alike—an apology would never grace his lips. And even in the immediate wake of the suffering he wrought, swallowed up by a painfully earnest ambition—an intention and devotion reverently pure—he would do it all again.

As it was, Armin ignored it, misjudged it—let himself be clay in Eren’s hands as they smoothed over his skin—body melting and molding into his movements, as he felt it had hundreds of times before. Let himself be taken apart, and lovingly shaped and sculpted back together again.

Because surely, ‘Humanity’s Hope’ harbored no malevolence for humanity itself. Because the Eren he knew, loved more deeply and achingly than anyone—the Eren he had died for—always had justice behind his war cry. Because the Eren he knew wouldn’t venture out at dawn, at the first pale crest of light over the horizon—leaving Armin’s sleeping body bundled in the sheets—on a private escort into the Middle East’s territory, directly to the frontline of Marley’s battlefield, in order to do exactly what Armin had all but prayed he wouldn’t.

And that was Armin’s first mistake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (If you were wondering, yes, this is an Eren-hacks-off-his-own-leg AU sdksdjksd)
> 
> Feedback from you guys means the world to me. ♡ I believe (I hope?) I kept this vague enough to remain consistent with whatever course of action unfolds, but the final chapter will depend on the final events of the manga. Thank you so much for reading!


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